Large groups should call in advance to arrange tours: (619) 464-8252 and ask for Carolina Bridges, or send e-mail to info@deeringbanjos.com

DEERING’S EVOLUTION

1974: Greg and Janet Deering, who were married in 1974, launch Deering Banjos in the living room of their Spring Valley home. Their combined annual first-year salary: $400 per month. Number of different banjo models produced: Two

1978: Deering moves into the basement of a former lemon-packing plant in Lemon Grove.

1983: The company produces its first John Hartford model, named after the legendary banjo player and violinist (who died in 2001).

1984: Deering’s employee roster has tripled to six and its gross income rises to $200,000. Deering moves three blocks and sets up next door to Taylor Guitars (whose co-founder, Bob Taylor, had worked alongside Greg Deering at The American Dream, a cooperative guitar-making shop, in the early 1970s).

1988: The company patents its Crossfire model, which is Deering’s first patent and the world’s first successful electric banjo (equipped with two magnetic pickups and volume and tone controls). Bela Fleck subsequently becomes the most prominent national musician to record and perform live using a Crossfire.

1996: Deering introduces its Goodtime banjo, a lower-priced acoustic model geared to beginning banjo players. Its success — 800 banjos sold that year — enables Deering to achieve its first $1 million gross.

2001: The company moves from Lemon Grove back to Spring Valley. Its employee roster has grown to 24 and its gross sales that year total $2.4 million.

2005: The company begins marketing its instruments internationally and has its first exhibit at the Frankfurt Musik Messe in Germany, the largest music trade show outside of the U.S.

2007: The company has it most profitable year ever, with gross sales of $3.9 million.

2010: Deering celebrates its 35th anniversary.

2011: The company introduces its Dropkick Murphys signature model line, the company’s second line to bear the name of a band (the first, in 2006, was named after the San Diego-bred Kingston Trio).

Deering Banjos was barely four years old when Bruce Springsteen recorded “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)” in 1979. But that song’s title perfectly captures the slow, yet steady, growth of this plucky San Diego company.

Deering is now the largest manufacturer of American-made banjos in the world, surpassing Gibson nearly a decade ago. Its expertly crafted instruments, which range in price from $399.99 to $31,059 each, are played by such music stars as Keith Urban, Steve Martin, 13-time Grammy Award-winner Béla Fleck and Jeff DaRosa of the New England Celtic-punk band the Dropkick Murphys. This month, DaRosa’s band became the first group since the San Diego-bred Kingston Trio to have a Deering signature model — in this case, a four-string tenor banjo with 19 frets — that is available for public purchase (retail price: $3,348).

“We started out in Spring Valley, in our two-bedroom home, in 1975,” said Deering CEO Janet Deering, who with her husband, master instrument maker Greg, has helped build Deering into one of the world’s most prestigious banjo companies. “We put our daughter and son on the payroll when they were in grade school and had them sweep up.”

The Spring Valley home-cum-headquarters Deering Banjos began in all of 900 square feet. Today, the company occupies an 18,000-square-foot factory that is located, by pure coincidence, a mile from the home the company started in 36 years ago. (The couple now lives in El Cajon.)

Then and now, the Deering’s impetus and foundation — a love of music in general and the banjo specifically — have remained absolutely steadfast.

“The passion for what we do is what the company is founded on,” Deering president Greg Deering said.

“I built my first banjo in 1969, when I was 19, and it’s almost like I couldn’t not do it now. For many years, Janet and I would go out in front of the shop and watch the sunset and enjoy what we were doing, even though we didn’t make much money for a long time … But you can overcome all kinds of challenges, if you really love what you do.”

The Deerings’ passion for all things banjo is reflected in the quality of their instruments and the high regard in which they are held.

“I find them to be smart and talented,” said Fleck, who featured a Deering Saratoga Star banjo on “Throw Down Your Heart,” the multiple-Grammy Award-winning album and documentary film he made in Africa a few years ago. “They have done a lot to further the cause of the banjo in our country.”

Those sentiments are shared by former San Diego resident George Grove, the current banjo player in the Kingston Trio, which today will receive a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in Los Angeles.

“Greg and Janet are two of the most loving people of high character I’ve ever met, said Grove, who now lives in Las Vegas. “When it comes to their banjos everything stems from that, because they run their business like they run their lives. There’s not a thought of doing anything for the sake of business, if it isn’t morally acceptable.”

The Dropkick Murphys, whose new album features a cameo by Bruce Springsteen, are similarly impressed by the quality of Deerings. So impressed, in fact, that the seven-man band’s website

(dropkickmurphys.com) now offers discounted prices for two of the company’s lower-priced banjo models (which cost $499.99 and $699.99, respectively).

“Deering is the only company we’ve hooked up with,” said Dropkick banjo player DaRosa. “They only have a small group of artists with their own signature banjo lines, so it makes the band and me feel very special to be in that elite company. Plus, they’re the best banjos I’ve ever played. I have five and they all sound great.”

DaRosa had been playing (and purchasing) Deerings for several years before the company approached his band last year about doing a Dropkick Murphys’ signature model line.

Credit for the partnership goes to the band’s manager and to Greg and Janet Deering’s daughter, Jamie, who oversees the company’s Artist Relations department (and whose nickname as a student at Monte Vista High School was “Banjo Girl”). An avid alternative-rock fan, she invited DaRosa to visit the Deering factory when the Dropkick Murphys played here at Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre last summer as part of the annual Vans Warped Tour.

“I always like to see a band live first, because it’s important that they’re great on stage,” Jamie, 32, said. “I told my mother I thought it would be a smart idea to work with them, and she agreed.

“I grew up around banjos, so to help create a perfect banjo for a musician is ideal. I really love my parents and the company, and I want to see it continue for a long time. It’s not just about money. We’re really happy that people play our banjos and we want to make them beautiful instruments.”